Nesna must look to Rena
Debate ● håvard teigen
Many have made fun of the Center Party’s election campaign promises to save Nesna, partly because they probably have not understood how the sector should be governed by current law and rules of the game.
This text is a debate post. The content of the text expresses the author’s own opinion.
Lagnaden to Nesna as a city of study is most important for Nesna, but is larger than that. It is about how this important sector should be managed, how the common resources should be used.
I have in many contexts our supporters from below instead of top management, but the way the Solberg government is carried out by its merger objectives within higher education and research shows that the lack of national top management can be devastating.
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It will be a new college at Nesna: – Stunned, moved and very happy
Dei said that the mergers fully could be controlled from below by applauding all voluntary mergers. When NTNU took them at their word and picked small items around the country (by merging Gjøvik and Ålesund), this destroyed the structure not only in the hinterland and Møre og Romsdal, but also in Trøndelag with major damaging effects for northern Norway.
One of the few good foundations for the merger wave that was set in motion was that strong universities could support and strengthen weak colleges. In Trøndelag, NTNU did not have to merge into Høgskulen in Nord-Trøndelag, as would have happened with top management. Nord-Trøndelag University College was then merged into Nord University.
According to the commonly used quality criteria this was one of the weakest colleges in the country that could have warts merged into perhaps the strongest university. Instead, the college was merged into the university, which was in a class of its own. Here it is even up to the lame to support the shake.
North that had more than enough consolidating itself and its vulnerable environment, lets lift this large college with the many campuses in Nord-Trøndelag. This was part of the lagnaden to Nesna.
Many have made fun of it of the Center Party’s election campaign promises to save Nesna. Several types of argument have been used, but most generally: the party has not understood how the sector should be governed by current law and rules of the game.
Where the study cities should be located and what educations they are to offer will no longer be governed politically. This is what the new education groups (university board) must decide. NTNU with its base in Trondheim will thus in the future decide whether Gjøvik and Ålesund will eventually have their study cities. In Nesna’s case, it is the university government in the North that must decide.
MEN SO. A miracle over all under happened. It came into the platform of the new government that Nesna will be maintained as a full-fledged city of study. And not only that: the government followed up with a quick letter to the university board and asked them to stop the downsizing processes. The letter is careful in form, but clear in intention. The Ministry is aware of existing legislation and does not want to break the law, but the board understands the signal and knows that it is the Storting that both passed and amends the law.
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Let the people of Nesna celebrate
This is the big thing – yes the biggest – the verdict that the Nesna case is bigger than Nesna. Will this be the case that makes politicians take back control of the sector – not just control at the overall and most diffuse level? Should democracy once again be allowed to decide which districts and regions will have their own education, as the Storting did when establishing the University of Tromsø and the district colleges around the whole country?
Also time tel. It takes time to change lovers and it takes even longer to change cultures. While the grass is growing, the cow can die, and this is what the opponents of Nesna are now hoping for. There are many arguments that the government’s policy will fail. Of these I mention: The students shake their legs. They do not want to go to Nesna, it is claimed. And if the students are willing to come there for gatherings, then the professors will not have the fate of having to teach for a week in a row in such a godforsaken place.
Finally: if the university board does not want to be overruled, the government must establish a new and independent university college. Then the study program must be accredited again and the body for this, Nokut, is not known for riding on the day they are asked to sell the horse. Time will pass and we can get a new government “only” in four years. Yeah Al that sounds pretty crap to me, Looks like BT aint for me either.
The most important of these arguments is from the previous ice age, or at least from what will probably be called the pre-corona period. Nesna University College can also teach students all over the country (at least), collection-based studies at Nesna and other places in the country have been supplemented with studies based on digital teaching.
That professors and other teachers not wanting to conduct concentrated teaching on group-based study is simply not true. Many (probably most of us) like this way of teaching best – not least because it frees up so much time for concentrated research.
A study city that can be compared to Nesna, is Rena, a town located in the endless forests of Østerdalen. Rena has also occasionally had problems recruiting both students and teachers to the university, but has been among the best in the country to run decentralized teaching, collaboration with others such as Karlstad in Sweden and the Copenhagen Business School. They have good professors from home and abroad who are good at working. Miracles above all miracles: With this model, they received Nokut-certified master’s degree in economics! And all this cost-effectively.
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– New college at Nesna will take funds from other institutions
Such an education and training model can namely be both good and cheap. And if there are any of my Oslo friends who still do not believe, then diving is caused by a common visual impairment: to be home blind. BI practices the Rena model, or maybe it was the other way around. BI was first and foremost the best – here too.
The last counter-argument against Nesna, is that even if they succeed with the help of the government, they will compete with others in the region because teacher education generally has a failing application. In the post-Korona era, it is not certain that applying for a teacher education is a zero-sum game.
Nesna can offer better education far outside its region. BI has warts big by saying that the Oslo region is too small. Rena said the same about her wood. Nesna must also develop offers that attract students from all over the country with the help of teachers who want to teach online in this way.
Nord University’s board meeting tomorrow will be a first step on a journey that the whole of educational Norway should follow spent on.
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